Suspected militants killed a policeman and critically wounded another in Pakistan’s wild tribal, said officials on Friday. The suspected militants ambushed a police vehicle when it was on a routine patrol late on Thursday in the town of Tank. Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack. “They (militants) fired indiscriminately at the vehicle, killed a policeman and fled,” said an intelligence official. In another incident, dozens of militants attacked a tribal police post in Bajaur with rockets and machine-gun fire on Thursday night, critically wounding a policeman.
Also, suspected insurgents fired two rockets at a checkpost in Tank, a district adjoining South Waziristan, early on Friday, but they hit a wall and caused no casualties, said police. A Pakistani military air strike in the Zamzola area of South Waziristan region last week destroyed a suspected Al Qaeda hideout, killing at least eight people and sparking a protest. Two policemen were wounded on January 21 when a remote-controlled bomb exploded near a police van in Tank.
Pakistani troops have killed hundreds of Taliban and Al Qaeda militants who fled Afghanistan after the 2001 ousting of the Taliban regime. |